Dirty Dancing

I wonder if there truly is any fate more depressing than ending up as a contestant on Dancing With the Stars. I’ve only watched the show intermittently over the years—usually under duress, because someone else had laid claim to the remote control—mostly because I get embarrassed for the participants. I hide my eyes when they misstep, and when their smiles falter while the judges offer them harsh criticism, or when I can see the feigned indifference of their shrugs when the scores come up. I’m not claiming to be nicer than anyone who enjoys this show, mind you, but there’s a quality to watching it that bothers me, namely the gleeful schadenfreude of watching people cling to fame with expensively manicured hands. After all, I’m not much convinced anyone watches the show for the dancing; it is built on the conceit that the talent can be taught, and well, maybe it can, but I think it isn’t likely, for most of us, as late in life as these people are. And in any event, were these "stars" more successful at it, the learning to dance I mean, I suspect the show would be less popular.

The "stars," after all, of the title, are has-beens, and that’s no surprise to anyone, it’s explicitly part of the show’s allure. The show basically winks it at you. And although there’s usually, from what I can tell, gender parity among the contestants, it’s curious that the people on the show who seem to garner the most derisive commentary, the ones people resent the most as "talentless," are women.